The Royal Fisk Collection project is a collaboration between Professor Laura Ishiguro and UBC Digital Initiatives.
The goal was to give students a positive experience in the digital humanities - creating history using digital tools. In the first phase, students used a wiki to create full-text transcripts of letters written during the 19th century gold rush. In phase II, students used google forms to break down the letters for quantitative analysis. By putting terms into categories, the students can use basic data analysis skills to expose trends and answer historical questions. |
The Letter
Collaborating on full-text transcription harnesses the power of the group. Where one person's knowledge is incomplete, another can help.
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The Form
Simple two-page form asks for basic information about the letter
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The Analysis
The form creates a spreadsheet. Using charts, it is easy to see what the most frequently imported goods during the Gold Rush were.
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